An Acquired Taste
Once, Al Gore was a nice young man and an ineffective campaigner. Today he is America's most lethally effective practitioner of high-stakes political debate -- a combatant who will do whatever it takes to win, and who wins ugly. Our correspondent looks at the making of Gore as the killer debater of American politics.
by James Fallows

Breaking the Global-Warming Gridlock
The debate between those who advocate action to reduce global warming and those who oppose it is both irresolvable and pointless. It's time, the authors maintain, to stop arguing about the atmosphere and to start learning how to adapt to the weather.
by Daniel Sarewitz and Roger Pielke Jr.